Tinker was of perpetual interest to him, and he listened with greedy ears to the wisdom of the world of that sage, on the rare occasions when some matter or other set it flowing from his lips. On the other hand, he found in him an absorbed listener to the stories of his less involved financial battles, and spared no pains to make them clear to him. Sir Tancred interested him little less, and he was always deploring the loss the splendid army of millionaires had suffered by his excellent abilities not having been forced to flow in a business channel.

He was distressed, too, about the waste of Tinker, and adjured his father to hand him over to him to be made a millionaire of.

But Sir Tancred turned a deaf ear to his petition, and said, "Of course, if Tinker went into business he would become a millionaire. And it's a fashionable occupation, and I've nothing to say against it. But over here, with some of us, there are still other things besides money—not that there will be long—and for my part I shall be content if he grows up a gentleman, as he will. Business might spoil that; and at any rate I won't chance it. And, after all, my step-mother won't live to much more than eighty, so that he will have thirty thousand a year before he's forty-five."

"That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars," said Septimus Rainer thoughtfully, and he pressed the point no more.

He was far too shrewd not to perceive the attraction Sir Tancred and Dorothy had for one another, and he regarded it with entire content. Whatever he might have said against Sir Tancred's manner of life, he had a genuine respect for his qualities; and he had learned from Dorothy something of the causes of his falling into that manner of life. He had a strong belief that once married to her he would change; he thought it likely that he might even embark on the career of politics, which he understood to be, in England, a quite respectable pursuit. He was aware, of course, that he could easily buy her an English peer or a foreign Prince for husband. But Sir Tancred's rank and birth satisfied his simple tastes; and he was quite sure that he might ransack the English peerage and the Courts of Europe without finding her as good a husband. He did not perceive that his millions barred Sir Tancred's path.

Dorothy perceived it only too soon. She found the growth of her intimacy with Sir Tancred checked; it did not lessen, indeed, but it did not increase. A shadow had fallen across it, and he no longer talked to her in the tone of half-affectionate familiarity he had grown to use with her, he was more reserved. She chafed at it, but she was not greatly downcast; she only wished that the kidnappers had had the grace to leave her in her part of the penniless governess, a few weeks longer. She felt that, then, all the millions in the world would not have barred Sir Tancred's way. Indeed, she had no reason to be greatly downcast. This sudden setting of her out of his reach had inevitably increased her attraction for Sir Tancred; it had deepened his liking to a far stronger feeling. He cursed the unkindly Fates, and told himself that his only course was to fly; that the more he saw of her, the more painful would that flight be. But he could by no means constrain himself to forego the delight of her presence; and, though he never let a word of his love escape his lips, his eyes and the tones of his voice told her of it often enough.

Tinker was not long providing Septimus Rainer with a carefully chosen English valet, whom he found a pleasant, unassuming fellow, very easy to get on with. Then the millionaire began to talk of engaging a secretary, for his millions were beginning to make themselves troublesome; and he begged Tinker, since he had found him so unembarrassing a valet, to keep his eyes about him for a secretary also; but Tinker said that Monte Carlo was no place to find secretaries who understood business.

One morning he saw Madame Seraphine de Belle-Ile drive up to the hotel. She wore a mournful air; and he perceived at once that she was no longer clad in a bright scarlet costume, but in one of a dull crimson, more in keeping with her air of mournfulness. She cut him deliberately as she passed into the hotel.

He was exceedingly angry; no human being had ever cut him before, and he flushed with mortification. He walked down to the gardens pondering the affront; and his anger grew. Then of a sudden it flashed on him that she had found out Mr. Arthur Courtnay, and that the warning he had given her had had something to do with that discovery. She had cut him by way of showing her gratitude in a truly womanly fashion. With the smile of an angel indulgent to human frailty he forgave her, and thrust the matter out of his mind.

That night at dinner, or rather at dessert, Lord Crosland informed them that he was engaged to Claire Wigram; and when they had done congratulating him, he told them that in a few days he would be leaving for England with the Wigrams.

"Well," said Sir Tancred, "the season here is coming to an end; and, at any rate, the weather for the last few days has been too hot to do these children any good. I think we will move northward, too."

"It will be the break-up of a very pleasant party," said Septimus Rainer with a sigh, and Dorothy's face fell.

"Why should it break up?" said Lord Crosland. "You'd better all come."

"No; I'm not coming to England, yet," said Sir Tancred. "After all this heat it would be too great a risk to face straight away the bitter English summer. I thought of moving northward gently to Biarritz, or I have a fancy for Arcachon. Wednesday would be as good a day as any."

There was a pause; then Tinker said thoughtfully, "Wednesday is rather soon, sir." And, turning to Dorothy, he said, "Do you think that you could pack by Wednesday? Of course, it doesn't really matter, for you could come on after us; but I don't want Elsie to lose a day's work."

Septimus Rainer, Sir Tancred, and Lord Crosland looked a little taken aback; it struck them all three with the same sense of oddness that a small boy should direct the movements of the daughter of a millionaire.

"Oh, I can easily pack up by Wednesday," said Dorothy, as if it were a matter of course that he should direct her movements.

"That's all right," said Tinker.

"But I don't understand," said Septimus Rainer. "Has Dorothy bound herself to do as you tell her?"

"Well, I suppose she has, as far as teaching Elsie goes. And I explained when she took the post that we travelled about a good deal," said Tinker carelessly.

"But I can't have this," said Septimus Rainer.

"Well, she can always give me a month's notice, and then the engagement ends," said Tinker. He was prepared for the discussion, and resolved that his father and Dorothy should not be separated as long as he could prevent it.

"Do you mean she isn't free for a month from now? But—but it's absurd!" said Septimus Rainer.

"That's what the papers call the rights of the employer," said Tinker with a singularly sad sweetness.

"Oh, you wouldn't insist on that right, not if you were asked nicely, would you?" said Lord Crosland.

"Oh, yes, I should!" said Tinker cheerfully. "You see, I'm responsible for Elsie, and she will never get such a good governess as Dorothy again. So she must have as much of her as possible."

"Thank you; it's nice to be appreciated," said Dorothy, smiling at him.

"Ah," said Septimus Rainer with the air of one who has found a solution of the problem, "but Dorothy can always forfeit a month's salary in lieu of notice."

"Oh, I couldn't think of it, papa!" cried Dorothy. "I should lose—I should lose five pounds!"

"This beats the Dutch! This is avarice! I allow you four thousand dollars a month!" said Septimus Rainer.

"Ah, but this is my own earned money!" Dorothy protested, flushing and smiling.

Suddenly there came a twinkle into Septimus Rainer's eye. "Well," he said, "if you're ground down under the heel of a grasping employer, you're ground down, and you must go to Arcachon. But I shall come, too."

"Of course," said Tinker. "You're—you're one of the family."

"Thank you," said Septimus Rainer. "I'm told that you English are slow about it. But when you make a man at home, you do make him at home. And I've always wanted to be adopted."



CHAPTER SIXTEEN

TINKER DISOWNS HIS GRANDMOTHER

On the eve of their departure for Arcachon, Tinker and Elsie were sitting in the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, taking a well-earned rest after a farewell bolt into the Salles de Jeu, in which Elsie also had played a gallant and successful part, for the somewhat obscure reason that it was the last bolt: so strengthening to her character had been companionship with Tinker. She was receiving, with modest pride, his congratulations on having penetrated deeper than himself, to the innermost shrine, the Trente et Quarante table, in fact, when they saw coming towards them a large, majestic, white-haired lady, a small, subdued, mouse-haired lady, and a man of doubtful appearance.

Without causing him to pause in his congratulations, Tinker's active mind had placed the two women as a wealthy Englishwoman and her companion, and was hesitating whether to place the man in the class of Continental Guides or private detectives, when he pointed to the two children, and said something to the majestic lady.

"That's the little boy, is it? Then you two go and sit on the next seat while I talk to him," said the majestic lady in a voice which lost in pleasantness what it gained in loudness; and she came to the seat on which Tinker and Elsie sat, while her attendants walked on.

Now to call him a little boy was by no means the quickest way to Tinker's heart, and he watched her draw near with a cold eye. But all the same when she made as if to sit down, he rose and raised his hat with a charming smile. She sat down and looked him over with a cool consideration which provoked his fastidiousness to no admiration of her breeding. Then she said:

"Are you Sir Tancred Beauleigh's little boy?"

"I am Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh," said Tinker in a faintly corrective tone quite lost on her complacent mind.

"Hildebrand Anne! Hildebrand Anne! She called you Hildebrand Anne, did she? The impudence of these minxes!" said the majestic lady, and she sniffed like a lady of the lower-middle classes.

At once Tinker knew that she was Lady Beauleigh, and that she was speaking of his mother. But his face never changed; only the pupils of his eyes contracted a little; and he drew a quiet, deep breath of satisfaction. He had always hoped for an interview with her, his father's step-mother, and he knew that he had the advantage; for he was armed with a very fair knowledge of her, imparted to him by his father, who thought it well to put him on his guard; and of him she knew nothing.

"Who's this little girl?" said Lady Beauleigh, surveying Elsie with her insolent stare. "Send her away. I want to talk to you alone."

"This is my adopted sister, Elsie. You may talk before her; it doesn't matter how confidential it is. I always tell her everything," said Tinker in a tone of kindly but exasperating patronage.

"I don't care! Go away, little girl!" said Lady Beauleigh, and Tinker was pleased to see the colour rise in her cheeks.

He stayed Elsie, who was rising to go, with a wave of his hand and said gently, "Is it important talk?"

"Yes; it is!" snapped Lady Beauleigh.

"Then I'd rather she stopped. My father says you should always have a witness to important talk," said Tinker, and he smiled at her.

"Stuff and nonsense! I'm your grandmother!" cried Lady Beauleigh angrily.

"Ah, then your name is Vane," said Tinker sweetly.

"Vane! Vane!" Lady Beauleigh gasped rather than spoke the hated name. "It's nothing of the kind! It's Beauleigh! I'm Lady Beauleigh!"

"I'm afraid there must be some mistake. You can't be my grandmother on my father's side. My father's mother is dead," said Tinker in a tone which almost seemed to apologise for her error.

"You must be very stupid, or very ignorant!" cried Lady Beauleigh. "I'm your grandfather's second wife, as you ought to know!"

"Oh, I know, now," said Tinker; and his face shone with his sudden enlightenment. "You keep a bank."

"I—keep—a—bank?" said Lady Beauleigh in a dreadful voice.

"Oh, not a roulette bank or baccarat bank," said Tinker with well-affected hastiness. "One of the shop kind—where they sell money—with glass doors."

"My father was a banker, if that's what you mean," said Lady Beauleigh. "But a bank isn't a shop."

"Oh, I always think it a kind of shop," said Tinker with the dispassionate air of a professor discussing a problem in the Higher Mathematics. "It's as well to lump all these—these commercial things together, isn't it?" And he was very pleased with the word commercial.

"No: it isn't! A bank isn't a shop, you stupid little boy!" cried Lady Beauleigh hotly.

"Well, just as you like," said Tinker with graceful surrender. "I only call it a shop because it's convenient."

"A boy of your age ought not to think about convenience. You ought to have been taught to keep things clear and distinct," said Lady Beauleigh in a heavy, didactic voice.

"Oh, it's quite clear to me, really, that a bank's a shop; but we won't talk about it, if you're ashamed of it. After all, one doesn't talk about trade, does one?" said Tinker with a return to his kindly but exasperating patronage.

"Ashamed of it? I'm not ashamed of it!" said Lady Beauleigh in the roar of a wounded lioness.

"No, no; of course not! I only thought you were! I made a mistake!" said Tinker quickly, with an infuriating show of humouring her.

"I'm proud of it! Proud of it!" said Lady Beauleigh thickly. "And when you grow up and understand things, you'll wish your father had been a banker, too!"

"I don't think so," said Tinker; and he smiled at her very pleasantly. "I'm quite satisfied with my father as he is. I'd really rather that he was a gentleman."

"A banker is a gentleman!" cried Lady Beauleigh.

"Yes, yes, of course," said Tinker, humouring her again. "He's—he's a commercial gentleman."

Lady Beauleigh could find no words. Never in the course of her domineering life had she been raised to such an exaltation of whole-souled exasperation. She could only glare at the suave disposer of her long-cherished, long-asserted pretensions; and she glared with a fury which made Elsie, who had edged little by little to the extreme edge of the seat, rise softly and take up a safer position, standing three yards away.

Tinker took advantage of Lady Beauleigh's helpless speechlessness to say thoughtfully, "But about your being my grandmother? If you're not my father's mother or my mother's mother, you can't really be my grandmother. You must be my step-grandmother.

"I should think," Tinker went on, and his thoughtfulness became a thoughtful earnestness, "that you must be what people call a connection by marriage; not quite one of the family."

The thoughtfulness cleared from Tinker's brow, and he said with a pleasant smile, "But that's got nothing to do with what you came to talk about. You said it was important. What did you want to say?"

Lady Beauleigh remembered suddenly that she had come on an errand connected with her promotion of the glory of the Beauleighs. She swallowed down her fury, wiped her face with her handkerchief, and said in a hoarse and somewhat shaky voice, "I came to make you an offer."

Tinker beamed on her.

"You must be tired of this beggarly life, going about from pillar to post, living in wretched Continental hotels, with no pocket money."

Tinker raised his eyebrows.

"I know what your father's life is, just a mere penniless adventurer's."

Tinker beamed no more.

"And I came to offer to take you to live with me at Beauleigh Court. It's a beautiful big house in the country with woods all around it, and hunting and fishing and shooting and tennis-courts and fruit-gardens, and a cricket-ground, everything that a boy could want."

"And you," said Tinker in the expressionless tone of one adding an item to a catalogue.

"Yes; and me to look after you. You should have a bicycle." And she paused to let the splendour of the gift sink in.



"I have a bicycle," said Tinker.

"Well—two bicycles—and a pony——"

"I don't like ponies—they're too slow," said Tinker in a weary voice. "I always ride a horse."

"Well, you should have a horse—a horse of your own."

"What's the hunting like? But, there, I know; it can't be up to much; it never is in those southern counties. I always hunt in Leicestershire. I've got used to it."

"You hunt in Leicestershire?" said Lady Beauleigh with some surprise.

"Oh course. Where does one hunt?" said Tinker, echoing her surprise.

"But—but—where does your horse come from? I know your father can't afford to keep horses!"

"Sometimes he can," said Tinker. "And if he has had to sell them, a dozen people will always mount us."

Lady Beauleigh paused; and then she made the last, lavish bid. "And I would allow you a hundred a year pocket-money. Why—why, you would be a little Prince!"

"A little Prince! And learn geography! No, thank you!" said Tinker, startled out of his calm. "Besides," he added carelessly, "I've made five thousand in the last year."

"Five thousand what?"

"Pounds."

"Come, come," said Lady Beauleigh, shaking her head, "you mustn't tell me lies."

"It isn't a lie! Tinker never tells lies," broke in Elsie hotly.

"Hold your tongue, you impertinent little minx!" said Lady Beauleigh sharply. "Who asked you to speak?"

"I think you're a horrid——" said Elsie, and was checked by Tinker's upraised hand.

"And when I died," Lady Beauleigh went on, turning again to Tinker, "I should leave you thirty thousand a year—think of it—thirty thousand a year!"

"It all sounds very nice," said Tinker in a painfully indifferent tone. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't do."

"Wouldn't do? Why wouldn't it do? To live in a beautiful big house in the country, and have everything a boy could want! Why wouldn't it do?" cried Lady Beauleigh, excited by opposition to a feverish desire to compass the end on which her heart had been set for many months.

"Do you really want to know," said Tinker very gently, but with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

"Yes; I insist on knowing!" cried Lady Beauleigh.

"Well," said Tinker slowly, pronouncing every word with a very deliberate distinctness, "we shouldn't get on, you and I. I don't know how it is; but I never get on with people who keep shops or banks. I'm afraid you're not quite—well-bred."

Stout Lady Beauleigh sprang to her feet.

"Ah, well," said Tinker quietly, "you treated my father and mother very cruelly, you've just said rude things about both of them, and you've been rude to Elsie. The fact is, I don't see that I want a step-grandmother at all; and I can't be expected to want an ill-bred one anyway. So—so—I disown you."

Lady Beauleigh's face quivered with rage; she gathered herself together as if to box Tinker's ears; thought better of it, and hurried away.

Tinker and Elsie looked at one another, and laughed softly.

"Horrid old woman," said Elsie.

"A dreadful person," said Tinker.

As Lady Beauleigh strode out of the gardens, she came full upon Sir Tancred and Dorothy. He raised his hat, she tried to glare through him, and glared at him.

"That's my step-mother," said Sir Tancred. "I wonder what's the matter with her. She looks upset."

"Upset! Why, she looked furious—malignant!" said Dorothy.

Then they saw Tinker and Elsie coming towards them.

"I see," said Sir Tancred softly.

"Oh, if she's met my young charges!" said Dorothy, and she threw out her hands.

"Have you been doing anything to your grandmother, Tinker?" cried Sir Tancred.

"Well—I disowned her," said Tinker.

"Disowned her!"

"Yes; I had to," said Tinker with a faint regret. "She was rude, and she was wearing a gown which would have stood up by itself if she had got out of it—at Monte Carlo—in April—it's impossible!"

He shrugged his shoulders.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TINKER AND THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

Dorothy sat gazing over that charming gulf, charming alike for its scenery and its oysters, the Gulf of Arcachon. She gazed on it without seeing it; her beautiful face was clouded, and her brow was puckered in a wondering perplexity.

Tinker sat on the ground near her, his chin on his knees, observing her with a sympathetic understanding which would have disquieted her not a little, had she not been too busy with her thoughts to notice it.

They were still and silent for a long while, until she sighed; then he said, with unfeigned sadness, "I'm beginning to think he never will."

"Who never will what?" said Dorothy, awaking from her reflections, and extremely disconcerted by the exactness with which Tinker's remark echoed them.

"My father—ask you to marry him," said Tinker succinctly.

"Tinker!" cried Dorothy faintly, and she flushed a very fine red.

"It's all very well to say 'Tinker!' like that," he said, shaking his head very wisely. "But it's much better to look at things straight, don't you know? You often get a little forrarder that way."

"You are a dreadful little boy," said Dorothy with conviction.

"Yes, yes; I'm not blind," said Tinker patiently. "But the point is, that my father is ever so much in love with you, and he'll never ask you to marry him, because you're too rich. I'm sure I've given you every chance," he added with a sigh.

"You have?" said Dorothy, gasping.

"Yes; I'm always seeing that no one makes a third when you and he are together—on moonlit nights and picnics, and so on, don't you know?"

Dorothy laughed, in spite of her discomfort, at this frank discussion of her secret. "But this is inveterate match-making," she said. "Why do you do it?"

"Oh, I think it would be a good thing. You both want it badly, and you'd get on awfully well together. Besides, you're neither of you as cheerful as you used to be, and I don't like it; it bothers me."

"It's very good of you to let it," said Dorothy, smiling.

"Not at all. And Elsie and I would have a settled home, too. It's very funny; but sometimes I get tired of living in hotels."

"I'm sure you do," said Dorothy with sympathy.

"Well, have you got any idea how it can be worked?"

"No!" cried Dorothy, shocked, and flushing again; "I haven't! I wouldn't have!"

"That's silly, when it would be such a good thing," said Tinker with a disapproving air. "However, I suppose I can work it myself. I generally have to when I want anything done."

"What are you going to do?" cried Dorothy in great alarm. "Oh, I do wish I hadn't said anything, or listened to you!"

"I don't know what I'm going to do. These affairs of the heart are always difficult," said Tinker with the air of a sage who has observed many generations of unfortunate lovers.

"I won't have you do anything; I forbid it!" cried Dorothy.

"You shouldn't order your employer about," said Tinker with a smile which, on any face less angelic, would have been a grin. "Besides, I'm responsible, and I must do what's good for you. And, after all, I shan't give you away, don't you know?"

"Oh, do be careful!" said Dorothy plaintively.

"I will," said Tinker; and he rose and sauntered off along the promenade.

Dorothy looked after him with mingled feelings, dread of what he might do, vexation, and a little shame that he should have so easily surprised her secret; though, indeed, she preferred that Tinker should have discovered it rather than anyone else in the world. Then her sure knowledge of his discretion eased her anxiety, and the consideration of his able imagination and versatile ingenuity set a new and strong hope springing up in her.

Tinker strolled along to the Cafe du Printemps, and found his father sitting before it on the usual uncomfortable little chair before the usual white-topped table. He saw that his father's face wore the same expression as Dorothy's had worn before he had insisted on coming to her aid. Then he saw, with something of a shock, that a glass of absinthe stood on the table. Things must, indeed, be in a bad way if his father drank absinthe at half-past ten in the morning.

However, he hid his disapproval, and sitting down on another uncomfortable chair, he said gently, "What does it mean when a lady is compromised, sir?"

"It means that some accident or other has given malignant fools a chance of gossipping about her," said Sir Tancred in an unamiable tone.

"And the man has to marry her?"

"Of course he has," snapped Sir Tancred.

"Ah!" said Tinker with supreme thoughtful satisfaction.

His father looked at him for a good minute with considerable suspicion, wondering what new mischief he was hatching. But Tinker looked like a guileless seraph pondering the innocent joys of the Islands of the Blessed, to a degree which made such a suspicion a very shameful thing indeed. Partly reassured, Sir Tancred returned to his brooding: he was angry with himself because he felt helpless in an impasse. On the one hand, he could not bring himself to fly from Dorothy; on the other, he could not bring himself to abate his pride, and ask her to marry him. She was so rich; Septimus Rainer had talked of settling five million dollars on her. He looked again at the pondering Tinker; and his helpless irritation found the natural English vent in grumbling.

"Look here," he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "I told you that if you went on adding to our household, I should be travelling about Europe with a caravan. You began by adopting Elsie as a sister, and I said nothing. Then you added Miss Rainer as her governess, and I warned you. Miss Rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective. All these people, I know them well, will marry; and I shall be a patriarch travelling with my tribe. It must stop."

Tinker sighed. "We are a large household—twelve of us, with Selina," he said thoughtfully. "But you might make it more compact, sir."

"More compact—how?"

"You might marry Dorothy; and then you and she could count as one."

A sudden light of exasperation brightened Sir Tancred's eyes, and he made a grab at Tinker's arm. His hand closed on empty air; Tinker was flying like the wind along the promenade.

"Tinker!" roared Sir Tancred; but Tinker went round a corner at the moment at which only the T of his name could fairly be expected to have reached him. Sir Tancred ground his teeth, and then he laughed.

Tinker made a circuit, and came down to the sea, where he found Elsie playing with two little English girls staying at Arcachon with their mother. At once she deserted them for him, and when he had withdrawn her to a distance, he said, "I've hit on a way of getting them married."

"No! Have you? You are clever!" she cried with the ungrudging admiration she always accorded him.

"Clever? It only wants a little common-sense," said Tinker with some disdain.

"I shall be glad."

"So shall I. It'll be a weight off my mind, don't you know?" said Tinker with a sigh.

"I'm sure it will," said the sympathetic Elsie.

"It must be awfully nice to be in love," she added with conviction.

"Now, look here," said Tinker in a terrible voice, "if I catch you falling in love, I'll—I'll shake you!"

"But—but, I may be in love—ever so much, for anything you know," said Elsie somewhat haughtily.

"You are not," said Tinker sternly. "Your appetite is all right. Don't talk any more nonsense, but come along, we've got to get ready for the picnic."

At half-past eleven the two children went on board the Petrel, a little steam yacht of a shallow draught adapted to the shoals of the Gulf, which Septimus Rainer had hired from a member of the Bordeaux Yacht Club. They found Dorothy and Sir Tancred already on board, and were told that a cablegram from New York had given her father, his secretaries, and the telegraph office of Arcachon a day's work, and prevented him from coming with them. Tinker had known this fact all the morning, but he did not say so. His manner to his father showed a serene unconsciousness of any cloud upon their relations.

The Petrel was soon crossing the Gulf in an immensely important way, at her full speed of eight knots an hour. In pursuance of his policy Tinker took Elsie forward, and left Dorothy and his father to entertain one another on the quarter-deck. The two children amused themselves very well talking to Alphonse, the steersman, and Adolphe, the engineer, thick-set, thick-witted men, who combined the picturesqueness of organ-grinders with the stolidity of agriculturalists; Nature had plainly intended them for the plough, and Circumstance had pitched them into seafaring.

An hour's steering brought them across the Gulf. They landed, and made their dejeuner at a little auberge, or rather cabaret, affected by fishermen, and the folk of the Landes, off grey mullet, fresh from the Bay of Biscay, grilled over a fire of pine-cones, with a second course of ring-doves roasted before it.

After their coffee Tinker suggested that they should cross over to the strip of sand which at that point separates the Gulf from the Bay, and the others fell in with his humour. They crossed over and landed in the yacht's dinghy. Tinker insisted on taking two rugs, though both Dorothy and his father objected that the sand was quite dry enough to sit on. However, when they came to the beach of the Bay, Sir Tancred spread them out, and he and Dorothy sat on them. The two children wandered away, and presently Elsie found herself holding Tinker's hand, and running hard through the pines towards the landing-place.

In answer to Tinker's hail, Alphonse fetched them aboard in the dingey, and the honest, unsuspecting mariners accepted his instructions to take them for a cruise, and come back later for his father and the lady, without a murmur. But no sooner was the Petrel under weigh, than he strode to the middle of the quarter-deck, folded his arms, scowled darkly in the direction of his father and Dorothy, so heedless of their plight, and growled in his hoarsest, most piratical voice:

"Marooned! Marooned!"

Slowly he paced the deck, with arms still folded, casting the piercing glances of a bird of prey across the waters; then of a sudden he roared once more with the true piratical hoarseness, "All hands on deck to splice the main brace!"

Alphonse and Adolphe did not understand his nautical English; but when Elsie came from the cabin with a bottle of cognac and two glasses, their slow, wide grins showed a perfect comprehension. Tinker gave them the cognac, and took the wheel. Then he became absorbed in steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift; he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing French agriculturalists posing as mariners.

But for all his absorption in his steering, and his care to look past them as they sat in more than fraternal affection on the deck, with the bottle between them, it was somehow forced on him, probably by the noise they made, that they proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt away into a sodden and stertorous slumber.

At the third snore Tinker turned to Elsie, who sat by him looking rather scared by the changing humours of the agricultural mariners, and said with a sardonic and ferocious smile, "The ship is ours."

At once they divested themselves of the hats of civilisation, and tied round their heads the red handkerchiefs proper to their profession; then he gave her the wheel, and going to the cabin, came back with a black flag neatly embroidered in white with a skull and crossbones, Dorothy's work, and sternly bade an imaginary quartermaster run up the Jolly Roger. Then, as quartermaster, he ran up that emblem of his dreadful trade himself; became captain once more, and, with folded arms and corrugated brow surveyed it gloomily. Then he went down to the engine-room, put the yacht on half-speed, and, as well as he could, stoked the fires.

For the next three hours the Petrel forgot all the innocent traditions of her youth as a pleasure boat, and traversed the Gulf of Arcachon a shameless, ravening pirate, while Captain Hildebrand, the Scourge of the Spanish Main, issued curt, sanguinary orders to an imaginary but as blood-dyed a gang of villains as ever scuttled an Indiaman. The Jolly Roger and three or four blank shots from the little signal gun drove three panic-stricken fishing boats from their fishing-ground as fast as oars and sails could carry them, to spread abroad a legend of piracy in the Gulf which would last a generation.

It was nearly sunset before Captain Hildebrand returned to the serious consideration of his business as Cupid's ally. Then he set the Petrel going dead slow, ran her gently on to a sandbank, and let fall the anchor, which was hanging from her bows. This done, again a pirate, he looked at the recumbent and still stertorous Alphonse and Adolphe with cold, cruel eyes, and said, "It's time these lubbers walked the plank."



"Ay, ay, sir!" said Elsie cheerfully; and then she added, in a doubtful voice, "But won't the poor men get drowned?"

"Not in four feet of water," said Captain Hildebrand; and he set briskly about the preparations for the fell deed. With Elsie's help he brought a plank to the gangway; and then, either taking him by an arm, they dragged the grunting Adolphe slowly down the deck, and arranged him on the plank. With a capstan bar, and many a hearty "Yo, heave ho!" they levered the plank out over the side till Adolphe's weight tilted it up, and he soused into the water.

For a moment he disappeared, then he rose spluttering and choking, sank again, found his footing, and stood up, roaring like a flabbergasted bull. Captain Hildebrand lay quietly down on the deck, and writhed and kicked in spasms of racking mirth; but his trusty lieutenant, after laughing a while, looked grave, and said, "The poor man will take cold."

"I have no sympathy with drunkards," said Captain Hildebrand with cold severity; but he rose, and, going forward, by kicking Alphonse hard and freely in the ribs, roused him from his dream of the lass who loved a sailor, and said, "Adolphe has fallen overboard."

It took some time for the information to penetrate Alphonse's skull. When it did, he was all vivid alertness, staggered swiftly aft to the gangway, and in rather less than five seconds, with no conspicuous agility, had precipitated himself into Adolphe's arms. They rose, clinging to one another, and both roared like bulls, while the shrieking Tinker danced lightly round the deck.

Presently he recovered enough to throw them a rope, and they climbed on board: no difficult feat, seeing that the deck was not two feet above their heads. Before they thought of the yacht they went to the forecastle and changed their wet clothes, while the dusk deepened. Tinker went to the galley, and made tea. He had brought it to the cabin, and he and Elsie were making a well-earned and hearty meal, and discoursing with gusto of their blood-dyed career during the afternoon, when Alphonse, very sad and glum, came and told them that the yacht was aground, and Adolphe was getting up full steam to get her off. Tinker with great readiness said he would come up and help.

In half an hour he heard the rattle of the propeller, and, coming on deck, said he would go to the bows while Alphonse took the wheel, and Adolphe worked the engines.

He went right forward, and peered into the darkness. Adolphe set the engines going full speed, reversed, and Tinker cried, "She's moving!"

He saw the anchor chain slowly tauten, then the Petrel moved no more. The propeller thrashed away, but to no purpose, and to his great joy he was sure that the anchor held her. However, he cheered them on to persevere, and for nearly half an hour the propeller thrashed away. Then they gave it up, sat down gloomily on the hatch of the engine room, and lighted their pipes. Tinker and Elsie went back to the cabin, rolled themselves in rugs, and were soon enjoying the innocent sleep of childhood.

It was twelve o'clock when Tinker awoke, and at once he went on deck and found that Alphonse, by way of keeping watch, had gone comfortably asleep in the bows, while Adolphe snored from the forecastle. He kicked Alphonse awake, and said, "Don't you think you could get her off if you hauled up the anchor?"

For a minute or two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the Petrel on it. Then soberly and slowly they got to work on the capstan, and hauled up the anchor. A dozen turns of the propeller drew the Petrel off the bank and into deep water. In three minutes they had her about and steamed off towards the marooned, while Tinker in the galley was heating water for coffee and making soup.

In the meanwhile Dorothy and Sir Tancred, ignorant of their plight, had spent a delightful afternoon exploring with a never-tiring interest one another's souls. For a long time she chided him gently for his aimless manner of living; and he defended himself with a half-mocking sadness. At about sunset they rose reluctantly, sighed with one accord that the pleasant hours were over, looked at one another with sudden questioning eyes at the sound of the sighs, and looked quickly away. They walked slowly, on feet reluctant to leave pleasant places, through the pines, silent, save that twice Sir Tancred sent his voice ringing among the trees in a call to Tinker. They came to the landing-place, to find an empty sea, and looked at one another blankly.

"The children must have persuaded the men to take them for a cruise," said Sir Tancred.

"But they're late coming back," said Dorothy.

For a while their eyes explored the corners and recesses of the Gulf within sight, but found no Petrel. Then Sir Tancred said, "Well, we must wait"; and spread a rug for her at the foot of a tree. He paced up and down before her, keeping an eye over the water and talking to her.

The dusk deepened and deepened, and at last it was quite dark.

"We're in a fix," said Sir Tancred uneasily. "Of course, if we stay here they will come for us sooner or later, but goodness knows when. If we set out to walk to civilisation we shall doubtless in time strike it somewhere, but goodness knows where."

"If we went along this strip and turned eastward at the end of it shouldn't we come to the railway?" said Dorothy.

"I don't know that we should. We should get into the Landes, and they're by way of being trackless. Anyhow it would mean walking for hours; and it is less exhausting for you to sit here. The Petrel must turn up sooner or later."

Remembering her talk with Tinker in the morning, Dorothy believed that it would be later—much later; but as she could hardly unfold her reasons for the belief, she said nothing.

For a long time they were silent. Listening to the faint thunder of the Bay behind them, the lapping of the water at their feet, and the stirring of the pines, she filled slowly with a sense of their aloofness from the world, and a perfect content in being out of it alone with him. For his part, Sir Tancred was ill at ease; he foresaw that unless the Petrel came soon a lot of annoying gossip might spring from their accident, and he was distressed on her account. On the other hand, he, too, found himself enjoying being alone with her out of the world.

At last she said softly, "I feel as though we were on a desolate, far-away island."

"I wish to goodness we were!" he cried, with a fervour which thrilled her.

"You'd find it very dull," she said, with a faint, uncertain laugh.

"Not with you," he said quietly.

She was silent; and he took another turn up and down before he said, half to himself, "It would simplify things so, we should be equal."

"Equal?"

"Oh, not from the personal point of view!" he said quickly. "You'd always be worth a hundred of me. But on a desolate island money wouldn't count."

"Oh, money!" she said with a faint disdain. "What has money to do with anything?"

He sighed, and continued his pacing.

"Money is always an obstacle," he said presently. "Either there is too little of it, and that's an obstacle; or there is too much of it, and that's an obstacle."

"I don't think papa would agree with you about too much money," said Dorothy.

"I'm wondering what he will say if we don't turn up before morning," said Sir Tancred gloomily.

"I suppose he'll say that it was an unfortunate accident."

"Yes; but then, I ought to have protected you against unfortunate accidents. I'm afraid there'll be a lot of gossip."

"Well, it wasn't your fault," said Dorothy carelessly.

Sir Tancred grew more and more unhappy. His watch told him that it was nearly ten o'clock, and there was no sign of the Petrel. Moreover, the sense of their aloofness from the world had taken a firmer hold on him, and it drew him and Dorothy nearer and nearer together. The feeling that the world, of which her money had grown the symbol, would again come between them, grew more and more intolerable.

At last it grew too strong for him, and he stopped before her and said, in a voice he could not keep firm, "About that wasted life of mine, Dorothy. Do you think you could do anything with it?"

Dorothy gasped. "I might—I might try," she said in a whisper.

He stooped down, picked her up, and kissed her. Then, with a profound sigh of relief and content, he sat down beside her, drew her to him, and leaned back against the tree; she was crying softly.

They were far away from the world, and for them time stood still. They did not see the approaching lights of the Petrel, or hear the throb of her screw; only the roaring hail of Alphonse awoke them from their dream.

When they came on board, the observant Tinker saw the flush which came and went in Dorothy's cheeks, and the new light in his father's eyes; he saw her genuine surprise at finding herself so hungry. He observed that his father was quite careless about the cause of the Petrel's long absence, and his angel face was wreathed with the contented smile of the truly meritorious.

After supper his father went on deck to watch the steering of the yacht; Elsie fell asleep; and Dorothy sat, lost in a dream.

"Is it all right?" said Tinker softly.

"I don't know what you mean. You're a horrid scheming little boy," said Dorothy with shameless ingratitude.

"Yes; but is it all right?" said Tinker.

"I shan't let you scheme like that when—when I'm your mother," said Dorothy with virtuous severity, and she blushed.

"So it is all right," said Tinker, and he chuckled.



THE END